When I open the Poetry Review
Is this a seriously strange strain of jealousy
Which chooses to overwhelm me
Does this show the futility
Of my fight against the establishment
That old names are laid beside new faces
Yet all seem intellectually academic in style
Why don’t I trust myself enough
To enter any of their competitions
Is my lack of self-belief raised
To stand me back on my unicycle pedestal
I don’t want to say anymore
I am already tied in knots of my own making
I didn’t leave school with any qualifications
Neither did I get a full-time university degree
So I wade in puddles of envy
I wallow in mires and mires of self-pity
I know there is no enforced duty
Except to Emerson College’s Poetry Otherwise
Which as you might see, calms me
Almost instantaneously gives me the time
To settle into a poem, to settle with a poem
Yet not with the Scottish mathematician
Whose self-indulgent dirge
Is so so similar to my own work
But hey, I am not published, nor never will be
Not by the hierarchy of establishment that is
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| Christopher's Website for his Collected Works |